UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk, who had been Russia’s civilian prisoner since March 2022, has returned to Ukraine as part of a prisoner swap, the Institute of Mass Information’s sources report. The reports of Dmytro’s release were later confirmed by President Volodymyr Zelensky, who posted photos of the swap.

UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk had been in Russian captivity since March 2022 as a civilian hostage. Russian soldiers kidnapped Dmytro Khyliuk on February 26, 2022, in the garden of his own house in Kozarovychi. He was first kept in the occupied Dymer, and then taken to a prison in Russia.

The Prosecutor General’s Office has opened a case regarding the abduction of civilians on the territory of the Dymer hromada. The investigation considers journalist Dmytro Khylyuk and his father victims. The case was opened under Part 1 of Art. 438 of the Criminal Code (violation of the laws and customs of war).

Dmytro Khyliuk was likely imprisoned in the Vladimir region of Russia.

The Russian Ministry of Defense did not explicitly say that Dmytro Khyliuk was being kept in detention as a prisoner of war, but cited the Third Geneva Convention, which specifically concerns POW treatment, in response to his father’s query.

On July 9, 2024, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said that Ukraine had unofficial data on Dmytro Khyliuk’s whereabouts.